Births, marriages and deaths are public and pretty much accessible by all if
you know where to look, they can be found published in the SS Death Index
(SSDI), newspapers, old city directories, church records, etc. Original
records held by the town of occurance, especially birth records are another
matter, the State of CT sees the cutoff at 100 years on birth records unless
you are a member of a recognized genealogical society. However the Federal
government publishes census records at 70 years, obviously there are still
living persons on those records. My own mother is still living and her age
is a matter of public record in both the 1920 and 1930 census, it lists her
parents, siblings, age, residence. Although not as much information as found
on the original certificate it is personal and by tracing back from there
it's not difficult to trace her life. I however choose not to publish her
name and date of birth with my online genealogy records and I will not
publish any information on any living person no matter what their age. I
don't see where tastefully publishing information on any person who has died
within the last 100 years would be of any harm to anyone as long as any
living person connected to them is excluded.
When I originally took the oath at the CT Soc of Genealogist I swore that I
would not publish information on any living person, nor any information on
births occurring outside of marriage. You will forgive me if I don't
remember the exact text, after all, it was the early 80s.
Their code seems to have changed, you can find it here --
http://www.csginc.org/csg_code_of_ethics.php
As all records are digitally converted in this information hungry age more
and more of our lives become public fodder, nothing is hidden if you really
want to find it. But, I have my own standards as stated above and I intend
to stick to them.
If someone has an objection to something that has been published I believe
it should be reviewed and if found in poor taste that it be removed. I will
say though that once it's on the web it's there for eternity and I hope
everyone will remember that before they hit the send button.